13 ms·

I don't know. We clearly won't be defeating death in our lifetimes (and frankly, I'm not sure I would want to live forever stuck in my 80 year old body). Not o

by phillmv 15y ago

I don't know. We clearly won't be defeating death in our lifetimes (and frankly, I'm not sure I would want to live forever stuck in my 80 year old body). Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. So… I'm open to the idea that we should know how to care for the dying instead of merely prolonging their misery. Everyone reading these words will die one day. Better get used to it!

kiba 15y ago
Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. Why do you think limited time give us meanings?
- lbotos 15y ago
  It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us.
  - true_religion 15y ago
    I say it hurries us into making decisions, wherein after our basic human psychology starts to rationalize the decision as 'meaningful'. If we had all the time in the world, literally, we could eventually learn to make decisions that are truly good instead of local conveniences.
  - kiba 15y ago
    It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us. Why don't we just choose what's the most meaningful thing to us, right now? Moreover, I think living for a really long time allows us to be more ambitious.
  - haliax 15y ago
    No it doesn't. The death of young children, or victims of accidents or violent crimes for instance, doesn't force them to chose anything. The notion that you have limited time, might make you want to prioritize. You can hardly speak for anyone else, or what makes them choose anything.
- jakubw 15y ago
  You don't need to look too far for examples. Even on this very site, there are quite a few people who want to make a huge difference with their lives in one way or another before they're 30 or 40. Because they know they probably won't have another shot at it later on. What would that number be if they had an infinite number? Many wouldn't probably ever get around to try.
  - polyfractal 15y ago
    How many people try to make a difference in the world, fail (because it is hard) and then capitulate into working a salaried job managing database queries for MegaCorp...because it is safe and they have a family to feed. If you knew you would live until 300 and remained reasonably "young/healthy" during that time you probably wouldn't start a family as soon.
  - kiba 15y ago
    I don't think a 20 years old doing startup is thinking "I gottach do this before I die!". No, it's just...let do it man!
    - kls 15y ago
      Right at the higher levels of human achievement, I believe that it is curiosity and inquisition that drive us. Certainly impending death can focus people, but I do not believe it delivers the spark that lights ingenuity.
  - joelrunyon 15y ago
    “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” - Steve Jobs A few months ago, this was one of the biggest quotes around the internet. For a lot of people, death is a catalyst to do something that matters. In the biography, Jobs talks a lot about how he's in a hurry because he feels like he's going to die young.
- phillmv 15y ago
  Think about it. I have a limited time on earth, yet I chose to spend it with you. Cuddling on this couch. Watching a movie. I think by the finite nature of our existence it imparts a little bit of significance to any sacrifice we might make to our own utilitarian maximizing.
  - joering2 15y ago
    Well, you didn't convince me there. We humans are lazy by nature. And you are spending time with him/her cuddling on your couch because your life is not in immanent danger. In other words, you are not assuming you will die tonight, but rather that you will go sleep, like any other night, and wake up next day (although one day you will be mistaken, but then it won't matter anymore). Have there been an earthquake or your place would be ate alive by fire, you would be running away like crazy and the last thing on your mind would be to cuddle on your couch. Further there is not much you can do to postpone the judgment. Sure you can break up with your loved one and lock yourself in a library for 10 years, grasp some wisdom, perhaps invest money or built a company, sell it ten years later for half a billion $ and invest all your money strictly into life-extension projects, but by now most likely you know the probability of achieving all this is so small, that you would rather cuddle on your couch just for a little bit longer.
joering2 15y ago
nobody is going to be stuck in their 80 years old body. this is the extremely short version/recipe to leave forever: 1. clone yourself. work with this guy who is very close to succeed [1] 2. once your clone is 25 years old and therefore stop growing, undergo a brain translation. Now, before you start laughing look here: [2] This is Dr. White [3] undergoing successful monkey brain transplantation in... seventies! I think 40 years later technology got much more advanced. So the result would be your 80 years old brain (assume it was still quite healthy) in 100% matching DNA body of 25 year old. IF you don't get brain cancer, or other brain disease, you have another 50, 80 years to go. Now, going further only certain parts of the brain makes up for your identity. Most likely only memory. Fast forward another 40 years in the future, knowing how to connect broken nerves again why not cut only small part of your brain that is you therefore transplanting only your identity and limiting size of your old body in the new one. Now, you can call me a conspiracy theorist, but if to overcome problems here is just a matter of time (by that I mean more time == less money + less engineers working on the problem. less time to resolve problem == more money to throw at the research + more engineers working on it), then I believe it is fairly plausible that elites like Rothschild family having billions of dollars for their disposition already have these technology available. Just ask yourself -- if you already have trillions in the bank, and building another successful company or buying another factory is boring to you AND the same time the only thing you are sure of is that one day you are gonna die, then it is obvious you will spend all your resources to "postpone the judgment". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Zavos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Zavos [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb3Zi0DenaE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb3Zi0DenaE [viewers discretion advised] [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White * I didnt want to go into the obvious legal issues here: cloning humans, "stealing" someones body, putting another "human" in 80 years old body therefore shorting their life, etc.
- loup-vaillant 15y ago
  I hope everyone do see the implication of creating a soul, then kill it 25 years later? Possibly repeatedly? That sounds almost as bad as a horcrux.
  - 15y ago
jbjohns 15y ago
>Not only is death necessary for new generations Not necessarily. Look at the problems in the world. How many of them are because we've forgotten history? Every time I read something new in history I'm struck by how this has all happened before and we're making the exact same mistakes again. I would submit that if we lived forever, we would be colonizing planets by now.

by phillmv 15y ago

kiba 15y ago

Not only is death necessary for new generations, it kind of gives meaning to the time we do have. Why do you think limited time give us meanings?

lbotos 15y ago
It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us.
- true_religion 15y ago
  I say it hurries us into making decisions, wherein after our basic human psychology starts to rationalize the decision as 'meaningful'. If we had all the time in the world, literally, we could eventually learn to make decisions that are truly good instead of local conveniences.
- kiba 15y ago
  It forces us to choose. Choose what means the most to us. Why don't we just choose what's the most meaningful thing to us, right now? Moreover, I think living for a really long time allows us to be more ambitious.
- haliax 15y ago
  No it doesn't. The death of young children, or victims of accidents or violent crimes for instance, doesn't force them to chose anything. The notion that you have limited time, might make you want to prioritize. You can hardly speak for anyone else, or what makes them choose anything.
jakubw 15y ago
You don't need to look too far for examples. Even on this very site, there are quite a few people who want to make a huge difference with their lives in one way or another before they're 30 or 40. Because they know they probably won't have another shot at it later on. What would that number be if they had an infinite number? Many wouldn't probably ever get around to try.
- polyfractal 15y ago
  How many people try to make a difference in the world, fail (because it is hard) and then capitulate into working a salaried job managing database queries for MegaCorp...because it is safe and they have a family to feed. If you knew you would live until 300 and remained reasonably "young/healthy" during that time you probably wouldn't start a family as soon.
- kiba 15y ago
  I don't think a 20 years old doing startup is thinking "I gottach do this before I die!". No, it's just...let do it man!
  - kls 15y ago
    Right at the higher levels of human achievement, I believe that it is curiosity and inquisition that drive us. Certainly impending death can focus people, but I do not believe it delivers the spark that lights ingenuity.
- joelrunyon 15y ago
  “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life,” - Steve Jobs A few months ago, this was one of the biggest quotes around the internet. For a lot of people, death is a catalyst to do something that matters. In the biography, Jobs talks a lot about how he's in a hurry because he feels like he's going to die young.
phillmv 15y ago
Think about it. I have a limited time on earth, yet I chose to spend it with you. Cuddling on this couch. Watching a movie. I think by the finite nature of our existence it imparts a little bit of significance to any sacrifice we might make to our own utilitarian maximizing.
- joering2 15y ago
  Well, you didn't convince me there. We humans are lazy by nature. And you are spending time with him/her cuddling on your couch because your life is not in immanent danger. In other words, you are not assuming you will die tonight, but rather that you will go sleep, like any other night, and wake up next day (although one day you will be mistaken, but then it won't matter anymore). Have there been an earthquake or your place would be ate alive by fire, you would be running away like crazy and the last thing on your mind would be to cuddle on your couch. Further there is not much you can do to postpone the judgment. Sure you can break up with your loved one and lock yourself in a library for 10 years, grasp some wisdom, perhaps invest money or built a company, sell it ten years later for half a billion $ and invest all your money strictly into life-extension projects, but by now most likely you know the probability of achieving all this is so small, that you would rather cuddle on your couch just for a little bit longer.

joering2 15y ago

nobody is going to be stuck in their 80 years old body. this is the extremely short version/recipe to leave forever: 1. clone yourself. work with this guy who is very close to succeed [1] 2. once your clone is 25 years old and therefore stop growing, undergo a brain translation. Now, before you start laughing look here: [2] This is Dr. White [3] undergoing successful monkey brain transplantation in... seventies! I think 40 years later technology got much more advanced. So the result would be your 80 years old brain (assume it was still quite healthy) in 100% matching DNA body of 25 year old. IF you don't get brain cancer, or other brain disease, you have another 50, 80 years to go. Now, going further only certain parts of the brain makes up for your identity. Most likely only memory. Fast forward another 40 years in the future, knowing how to connect broken nerves again why not cut only small part of your brain that is you therefore transplanting only your identity and limiting size of your old body in the new one. Now, you can call me a conspiracy theorist, but if to overcome problems here is just a matter of time (by that I mean more time == less money + less engineers working on the problem. less time to resolve problem == more money to throw at the research + more engineers working on it), then I believe it is fairly plausible that elites like Rothschild family having billions of dollars for their disposition already have these technology available. Just ask yourself -- if you already have trillions in the bank, and building another successful company or buying another factory is boring to you AND the same time the only thing you are sure of is that one day you are gonna die, then it is obvious you will spend all your resources to "postpone the judgment". [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Zavos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Zavos [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb3Zi0DenaE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb3Zi0DenaE [viewers discretion advised] [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_J._White * I didnt want to go into the obvious legal issues here: cloning humans, "stealing" someones body, putting another "human" in 80 years old body therefore shorting their life, etc.

loup-vaillant 15y ago
I hope everyone do see the implication of creating a soul, then kill it 25 years later? Possibly repeatedly? That sounds almost as bad as a horcrux.
- 15y ago

jbjohns 15y ago

>Not only is death necessary for new generations Not necessarily. Look at the problems in the world. How many of them are because we've forgotten history? Every time I read something new in history I'm struck by how this has all happened before and we're making the exact same mistakes again. I would submit that if we lived forever, we would be colonizing planets by now.